The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

Hahaha NO.

I mean hitting my macros and still having discretionary calories for alcohol.

There are no supplements to aid weightloss. Do not go for any either. A lot of them can cause medical problems.

Low Intensity Steady State Cardio (LISS) is an inefficient way to burn calories. You are better off with HIIT and weight lifting for calorie burn.

My advice would be to follow a tried and true program designed for your goals. Don’t hodge podge your own program. Thats typically where people get derailed. Save creating your own plan for when you are an advanced lifter and know your stuff.

What is your nutrition like? Do you know what your macro requirements are?

 

That's my issue when cutting, too. I follow the Leangains protocol and it works until I get down to about 12%. Then, I stall out, get mad, and start bulking.

Leangains basically says to eat unlimited protein, low fat, low carb, and fill the rest in with booze, but you can't do it more than once a week and the booze needs to be low calories (no margaritas, long islands, etc.). Ex.: if your goal is to eat 3000 calories per day, eat 1000 calories of protein and let the other 2000 come from booze. The problem is, once drunk, pizza and swiss cake rolls start looking good and self-control goes out the window lol.

 

This. HIIT is Crossfit. Thanks for making my points for me @PackCon

 

And HIIT is an ineffective way to gain muscle. Thanks for making my point for me.

 

But... The rock and cookies?

So all the powders I'm snorting anally or injecting straight into my veins aren't helping?

 

I feel like I am still pretty lean at least when it comes to my arms as I get vascular af when I lift also could just be genetics or because I'm just tiny...

I will definitely look into the legs because that is one thing I was fearful of moving on. Might snag a free pass and hit the gym this weekend going through that program. Hoping there won't be too many New Years Resolutioners left at this point...

 

CrossFit has weightlifting too, buddy. Lots of it.

 

Thanks! Will be trying a program hopefully that gets me closer to where I want to be. I just started picking and choosing as some stuff on my buddy's plan didn't feel like it did much at all or screwed with my joints. Ended up with a lot of lat gains... Chest is eh and arms are slowly getting bigger.

Nutrition I tried to get into, but got completely confused and with my schedule and how picky I am it made it difficult. Overall I eat fairly healthy the only bad things I eat are pizza once a week, CFA once or twice a week, and waffles/bacon once/twice a week, also down to one Coke a week as I used to drink a ton of soda. Otherwise diet mainly consists of vegetables, fruits, chicken, and fish I catch. Basically healthy all week and eat whatever on the weekend.

 

Food is important and sounds like you know a bit about healthy. Just be mindful when eating something that isn't your diet, don't get french fries over a sweet potato and no fucking adds to the sweet potato. Don't eat 13 rolls at texas roadhouse, etc...

Most important thing when it comes to changing your lifestyle is that you need to remember it's A LIFESTYLE. You can't expect changes overnight. It takes months and years to change for the better. Consistency is absolutely the key to it all. Follow a constant plan and you will be so much happier with your body. Don't give up too quick, it does get easier as time goes on.

 

Are you asserting that increasing an individual's cardiac output with a drug will induce additional caloric expenditure ? If that is your understanding of basic physiology, then you better go back to school. Caloric expenditure is on the demand side of the energy equation. Cardiac output is on the supply side of the equation.

 

My only weakness is pizza, used to go to buffet's and just eat everything. I would fight people when a fresh pizza got put on the counter, it was bad. Children would just run away crying... Haven't been to one since I started working out again though.

I do enjoy the lifestyle and have no intent to quit this time as I have seen progress unlike before. Also actually enjoy what I am doing this time around as well!

 

How are you going to know if the program is working if the maxes you are shooting for are the same or less than what you did last month? Shouldn’t you be shooting for a little over what you did last month? All that’s going to show is you didn’t make any progress. Unless of course you are starting at those numbers and moving up.

Strong lifts either way.

 

Yeah, but it leads to injury, self-loathing, and regret...and no gains.

The diet world can be confusing because of all the b/s that gets thrown around, but it's not really that hard: find your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), which is the amount of calories you need to consume per day to neither gain or lose weight. This can be found by eating the same amount of calories every day for around 2-3 weeks. After that 2-3 weeks, if you've gained no weight, you've found your TDEE. If you gained weight, subtract about 500 calories per pound of weight gained and that'll roughly be your TDEE. If you lost weight, add about 500 calories per pound of weight lost and that'll roughly be your TDEE.

Once you have your TDDE, add 500 calories per day to it to gain around 1 lb. per week. Conversely, subtract 500 calories per day to it to lose around 1 lb. per week. You don't want to gain more than a lb. per week because that's when fat gain starts happening. You don't want to lose more than a lb. a week because that's when muscle loss starts to occur.

Once you have the number of calories you need to eat, just fill it in with proper macros (proteins, carbs, and fats). A good standard is 1 gram of protein per lb. of body weight, 100 grams of fat, and fill the remaining calories with carbs.

It's that simple lol.

If you would've read everything I said, I said that using drugs to increase your heartrate is a dumb idea. An increased heartrate, no matter how it's obtained will cause you to burn more calories, even if it's a minimal amount...this is just like how being hot burns more calories....taking caffeine pills and sitting in a sauna isn't an effective way to lose weight, which is why I said weight loss supplements are stupid and don't work.

An example is if I'm sitting watching tv, I'm burning maybe 100 calories per hour. If I'm sitting on a 100 degree patio pounding red bull and watching a nailbiter football game, I'll be burning more calories because my heart is pumping twice and fast and my core body temp is up. It may only be 50-100 calories burned more per hour, but over a 24 period, that adds up. The definition of thermogenics is 'the metabolic process during which your body burns calories to produce heat.' There is no asterisk by the word heat that says the heat must come from working out...I'm not saying that's the most ideal way to burn calories, but it does work, even if it's a small amount of calories.

A simpler example is my 1 month old twins: We can't let them get too hot because they will burn too many calories and lose weight.

 

Every 4 weeks you add 10 lbs to your squat and dead max and 5 lbs to your bench max and restart the program. So in month 1 I'm lifting percentages based off of a 430 lb bench, a 415 lb squat and a 405 lb deadlift. After 4 weeks, I'll be lifting percentages off a 435 lb bench, a 425 lb squat and a 415 lb deadlift. After each cycle of 4 weeks, I should be able to bench the new maxes (and I will try to).

 

That honestly helps a lot... much simpler. I am kinda staying the same right now, so I was going to add another meal or something to my daily routine so that helps me figure out how much more I need to add!

 

Just add a pack of pop tarts to your diet. Delicious and about 400 calories depending on flavor

 

@SRQ_TACO16 listen to @zacharypaul89 on nutrition.

The goal to gain mass would be to take your TDEE and add 500 calories per day and get your macros right.

If you are not eating enough calories or enough protien and fat you will NOT gain muscle mass.

From your posts it sounds like your nutrition has been what has prevented your gains.

I recommend MyFitnessPal for counting macros.

And while we all joke about Pop Tarts (at least I do)... obviously do your best not to lean on processed foods to meet your macros and calories. When you die of heart disease at 45 doesn’t really matter you were ripped lol

 

This thread turned into a shit show. All because of CrossFit. Just like life.

 

Actually had a poptart this morning because my bananas are still green and I was in a hurry... I haven't bought poptarts in forever, but my brother was visiting for Christmas and his kids ate like non of the poptarts they had and left here.

Will do! I was kinda researching nutrition again on Monday because for like a month in a row everything has kinda stayed the same got confused af and figured I would just try to eat more. His advice made everything much simpler.

I do try to eat like actual food as much as I can and avoid frozen/processed foods. Kinda learned that from my mom she has always been big into nutrition and made us eat healthy while every other kid was sucking down candy, cheetos, and totinos pizza... They also ended up pretty large.

Any quick or easy snack type foods you all recommend? I used to eat peanuts as a snack till I read the label and saw how much fat was in them vs protein.